


Canned Laughter

by Marmosette



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Greg is tired, M/M, Mycroft has legs and knows how to use them, tv
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-23
Updated: 2014-02-23
Packaged: 2018-01-13 13:21:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1227907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marmosette/pseuds/Marmosette





	Canned Laughter

Greg was flopped on the sofa when Mycroft came home. He could hear a laugh track from the television as he hung up his coat and set his umbrella in the stand. He knew Greg would have heard the door, and yet he hadn’t called out. Mycroft frowned—Greg had had a bad day.

They weren’t exactly rare. Working in homicide and serious crimes didn’t make for a lot of cheerfulness at his desk, and while it may never have been in the numbers and to the same scale as Mycroft’s potential for unpleasantness, Greg’s view of things was far more immediate. Mycroft had learned to read the signs and handle Greg gently, when it happened.

He strolled down the hall to the den, and paused before entering the room. Greg wasn’t immediately visible—the chairs were empty, and his head didn’t show over the back of the sofa. But Mycroft could see his legs, shoved far out in front of the seat but still bent at the knees. Mycroft smiled fondly, anticipating the vacant, vaguely angry look he’d find on his lover’s face. The laughing of a televised audience sounded even more forced than usual against the sullen silence emanating from the sofa. Mycroft slipped his hands into his trouser pockets and moved slowly around the sofa, not looking directly at Greg until he stood beside the large flat-screen TV. Then he looked up at Greg without raising his head, raising his eyebrows instead.

“Have you eaten?”he asked.

Greg glanced at him. He had slid so far down that his head was the only part of him touching the back of the seat. His shirt had remained in place as Greg had slouched, and now the collar was up around his ears, his chin hidden against his chest. His arms were folded across his ribs, and Mycroft wondered if they weren’t blocking his view of the screen. Not that he believed Greg was even aware of what was on the screen. “Nah,”Greg said briefly in response to his question. “Didn’t feel like it.”

Mycroft nodded absently, then pulled his hands out of his pockets and slipped off the jacket of his suit. He draped it across one of the chairs, then crossed in front of Greg and sat down on the sofa beside him, turning sideways and stretching his legs across Greg’s thighs. “It is an established fact,”he announced thoughtfully, “that for many years, American laugh tracks were all from the same original, and one could recognise it because of the paid laugher with a rather distinctive voice, who probably would have been in more television programmes than anyone else in the history of the medium.”

Greg sighed and shoved himself up a little higher, gathering Mycroft’s legs closer as he resettled. “How did that work?”he asked absently, his eyes staying on the screen.

Mycroft tipped his head in a brief shrug, using the move to re-evaluate his estimation of Greg’s mood. He wasn’t paying the slightest attention to the plot, which seemed to involve a roommate breaking up with her brother’s best friend, which was for some reason a source of hilarity to all who beheld it. Greg’s face told him everything he needed to know. There was no particular sadness, and while there was anger, it was a dull, detached anger, aimed at the cosmos and no one particular human. So not a child’s death, not a rape, something more pedestrian altogether. Financial, most likely, on a large enough scale to end up on Greg’s plate, and while that meant a certain level of acute crisis, it wasn’t anything that required Greg’s continued presence at his desk. From his seeming detachment, Mycroft hypothesised that it was far enough after the fact that it might have been a court date. Greg was resigned, unhappy with the decision, but he was at least aware that he hadn’t failed in his duty.

“Simulated pleasure responses in order to encourage a more genuine feeling in someone else are hardly a new concept. Women have been faking orgasms for centuries. I’ve often thought it must be rather hellish for them.”

Greg glanced aside at him, then paused. “Wait. How did we go from laugh tracks to women having sex?”

“A question heard after many a failed internet date, I’m sure.”

Greg wrinkled his nose at him. “ _What?_ I am not prepared to hear your history with internet dating, Holmes.”

“Not even if it involves far fewer women than you might think?”

“I wouldn’t expect it to involve _any_ women.”

“Well. Anthea.”

Greg turned back to him and blinked. “You picked her up _online?_ ”

“Good heavens, no. She’s the one who filled in the profile and answered the messages, however.”

Greg resettled himself, turning more to face Mycroft. “You do know that that’s not how it’s supposed to happen, right? You’re actually supposed to _interact_ with people. Yourself.”

“What would be the point of that?”Mycroft asked, puzzled.

“You might have liked someone,”Greg said slowly, as if he were explaining math to a three-year-old Russian child, over-enunciating and wide-eyed.

“I _don_ _’_ _t_ think so,”Mycroft said firmly with just a hint of alarm in his voice. “No. The next thing you’ll suggest is that I should actually meet some of them.”

“Why would anyone join a dating site in order to _not_ meet people?”Greg asked, his morbid fascination and disgust evident in everything from his tone to his posture to his eyes.

“I hardly think that’s any of your business.”

“Your private life is none of my business?”Greg asked, his voice flat. He seemed to be trying not to smile, as well.

“Absolutely not. Your voyeuristic interest in my sex life is appalling.”Mycroft swung his legs back to the floor, and gave Greg one last horrified glance before getting to his feet. “Now come to bed, Gregory. In the morning, we can discuss who you need me to have killed.”


End file.
